


An Invitation

by wildestranger



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-05
Updated: 2010-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-08 17:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildestranger/pseuds/wildestranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Poetry by Emily Dickinson.</p>
    </blockquote>





	An Invitation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pre_raphaelite1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pre_raphaelite1/gifts).



> Poetry by Emily Dickinson.

  
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!  
Were I with thee  
Wild Nights should be  
Our luxury!

The words are large and cramped. Remus feels the confusion on his own face, the frown on his brow and the lower lip tight between his teeth. He does not give in to it.

The note was left on his bed by Sirius. Sirius likes to give notes, he spreads them with generous carelessness, tiny pieces of parchment with cryptic words, strange compounds and mindless lines of poetry. Remus knows these words, but he didn't know that Sirius knows them. They are directed at him; there was a Moony-charm on the paper and it hopped about with a forlorn air before Remus caught it. He strokes the paper and it wriggles a little, some of the charm still there.

It is an invitation. Remus has seen invitations before, in Sirius' hands that become suddenly still and his eyes that look too long, too much. Remus hasn't yet decided how he wants to answer. He knows he can be distracted by the sight of a supple calf, a carelessly bared stomach, a sharp grin. But it isn't enough that Sirius' body is pleasing in his eyes. His own body must be there too.

Remus knows how to use his body, how to transform stumbling movements into confidence, how to take pleasure in steady hands. But he isn't sure that his hands could be steady on someone else's body. The paralysis of indecision tends to arrive at such moments.

Sirius' words are large, they fill up the space between the lines and often scare the reader with the inadequacy of his own words. Remus is resistant to Sirius' script; he writes on endless pages that no one sees, thoughts he doesn't need to share. But because of them he can stand up to Sirius' notes.

Remus folds the paper and hides it beneath his mattress. He has no answer yet.

: :

Futile – the Winds –  
To a Heart in Port –  
Done with the Compass  
Done with the Chart!

The second note comes at dawn, waking Remus up and making him wonder whether Sirius has once again spent the night with the Map. He thinks he should feel something at the words, but mostly he wants to go back to sleep.

But this is a different invitation, and inviting thoughts are forming in Remus' mind. Darkness behind closed bed-curtains, the necessity of silence and confined space. Trembling white limbs, vulnerable and tight. The unbearable hotness of another mouth, the slick movement of skin on skin. Sharp arousal and someone's teeth on his collarbone, his wrists.

Remus can imagine being touched. And he can imagine touching Sirius, fingertips on his shoulder, his hips. Yet it is too confusing, how the two would go together. He can focus on the thought of someone pinning him down and licking the inside of his elbows. He can focus on the taste of Sirius' fingers. But both. Is too much.

Remus lifts his hands and looks. What can they do other than smear ink and words, and turn the depths of the library or the crowded food-stained sofas of the common room into a little world made cunningly. Words that mean nothing to anybody else. Sirius' words are not his own, but this is what gives them power. Puts something else in the balance between them.

He isn't afraid to touch Sirius. But he doesn't know the words for the touching.

: :

The third note arrives at the stroke of midnight and Remus is tempted to smile at the melodrama of it. But there is something more disturbing in the words that he can't think about yet, something strange and terrifying. He folds the note, puts it in the pocket of his pyjamas and leaves the room.

There are a few flights of stairs on the way to the Room of Requirement, enough time for Remus not to think about what might happen.

Sirius is inside and he isn't surprised to see Remus arrive. Remus takes out the note and reads it out loud.

"Rowing in Eden –  
Ah, the Sea!  
Might I but moor – Tonight –  
In Thee!"

Sirius shivers at the words and Remus marvels at the sound of his own voice, the rough nakedness of it and the way it makes Sirius close his eyes.

Yet there is another invitation here and this Remus can't refuse for Sirius is taking his clothes off, button after button opened by careful hands.

It is a wondrous thing, and he doesn't lose himself on the smell of Sirius' flesh. Nor does he hide inside his own.

Remus lets the note fall and steps closer, hands rising to pull off his shirt, but Sirius stops him. His arms are caught in folds of cloth as Sirius pushes him on the bed and stumbles on top of him. Then there is a warm mouth on his, greedy and clumsy, and Sirius' fingers are pulling Remus' legs apart and stroking his thighs through the flannel. Sirius' teeth are soft on his nipples and Remus can't move, he twitches and jerks his hips against Sirius and moans. His shirt is keeping him prisoner and he wrestles with it, as Sirius holds his hips in place and sucks on Remus' hipbone, and Remus opens his mouth and sucks in air.

Then Sirius is pulled up and pinned down. And he can feast on long licks on sensitive flesh, calloused hands that are rubbing the inside of Sirius' legs, and open-mouthed kisses, which last and leave sloppy marks all over their bodies.

When Remus' teeth are tugging at the blood visible through the skin on Sirius' neck and his fingers are hard inside Sirius, he understands that the invitation is not for him to plunder and to take. What he reveals when he touches Sirius scares him. But he gives it, and learns, through the moans and shudders of Sirius' body, to receive it in return.


End file.
